Daenerys Targaryen's High Valyrian Quotes — Translated & Explained

Daenerys Targaryen's High Valyrian Quotes — Translated and Explained

Quick Answer: Daenerys Targaryen speaks High Valyrian in pivotal moments across all eight seasons of Game of Thrones. Her most famous line — Dracarys — means "dragonfire" and is a command to breathe fire. Her other attested quotes include freedom speeches to the Unsullied and the slaves of Meereen, declarations of her bloodline, and intimate phrases said to Khal Drogo. Every line is linguistically real, built by language creator David J. Peterson.

Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen does not simply sound like she is speaking another language — she is speaking another language. Every High Valyrian line in Game of Thrones was written by David J. Peterson, the linguist hired by HBO to build the language from the fragments George R.R. Martin had seeded into his novels. The result is a body of attested dialogue that fans and linguists can parse, grammatically analyze, and learn from.

This guide covers every major High Valyrian quote Daenerys speaks, organized by season. For each one you get the original text, a word-by-word gloss, the natural English translation, the scene context, a note on the grammar, and an explanation of why the moment matters dramatically.

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How Emilia Clarke Learned the Pronunciation

Before diving into the quotes themselves, it is worth understanding how Daenerys's High Valyrian dialogue was produced — because it explains why it sounds so good.

David J. Peterson submitted every line to the production as a written script along with audio recordings of himself speaking the dialogue at natural speed. Emilia Clarke and her dialect coach worked from those recordings, drilling the phonology until the delivery felt embodied rather than recited. Clarke has said in interviews that the experience of speaking a fully real language — one with consistent internal logic — made it easier to learn than a collection of random exotic sounds would have been. When a language has rules, your brain finds patterns; when it is pure gibberish, there is nothing to anchor to.

Peterson designed Daenerys's register of High Valyrian to be more formal and more archaic than the variety spoken in the Free Cities. As a Targaryen, she would have been taught a courtly, ceremonial form of the language — the prestige register associated with the old Valyrian Freehold. This is why her High Valyrian sounds more precise and measured than the Valyrian you hear in slave-trading cities like Astapor or Yunkai. She is not just speaking the language; she is speaking the royal version of it.

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Season 2 — The First Dracarys

Scene: Daenerys trains Drogon in Qarth

Season 2, Episode 4: Garden of Bones — or more precisely, the training scenes distributed across Season 2 episodes, culminating in the iconic moment at Astapor at the close of Season 3. The word itself first appears clearly in Season 2 as Daenerys works with her growing dragons.

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Dracarys

Word by word:

• dracarys — dragonfire; used here as an imperative (a command)

Natural translation: "Dragonfire." As a command to the dragon: "Breathe fire."

Grammar note: The word drakarys (the underlying noun) belongs to the aquatic noun class in Peterson's High Valyrian system — a class that includes large, powerful, or dangerous things associated with elemental forces. Used as a bare imperative to the dragon, it functions like calling the action by its name: you do not say "breathe fire," you say the fire itself. It is a condensed, intimate command — the kind a rider gives to an animal that knows and trusts them.

Why it matters: This single word became perhaps the most recognized invented word in television history. Its power is partly phonological — the hard initial consonant, the rising middle vowel, the final hiss — and partly contextual: it is always followed by something burning. Peterson built the word from the noun for fire (drakā) and elements that give it a Latinate gravitas. The first time a casual viewer hears it and understands what it means, the language has done its job.

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Season 3 — The Astapor Speech and the Unsullied

This is the scene that transformed Daenerys from a character with potential into a conqueror, and it is also the scene that showed the dramatic power of High Valyrian most clearly.

Scene: "A dragon is not a slave" — Astapor

Season 3, Episode 4: And Now His Watch Is Ended

Daenerys has agreed to trade one of her dragons — Drogon — to the slave trader Kraznys mo Nakloz in exchange for the Unsullied army. Kraznys has been making dismissive comments about Daenerys throughout the negotiation, confident she does not understand High Valyrian. His translator Missandei has been softening his insults. Then Daenerys accepts the whip that controls the Unsullied, turns to address the army in High Valyrian, and everything changes.

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Unsullied! Slay the masters! Slay the soldiers! Slay every man who holds a whip — but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see.

This speech is given in High Valyrian, confirmed as linguistically consistent with Peterson's system. The core of the reveal is the phrase:

Dovaogēdys! Āeksia ossēnātās, mīsās, kostōbās, pōntālīon yn rigliot lanta lēdys!

Word by word (partial gloss of the attested portion):

• Dovaogēdys — Unsullied (the army's name in High Valyrian)
• āeksia — masters
• ossēnātās — kill (imperative, plural command form)
• mīsās — soldiers (object)
• kostōbās — powerful ones, those who hold power
• pōntālīon — their (possessive)
• yn — but, and yet
• rigliot — child/children
• lanta — harm (negative implied by context)
• lēdys — see, witness

Natural translation: "Unsullied! Slay the masters! Slay the soldiers! Slay every man who holds a whip — but harm no child."

Grammar note: The imperative form in High Valyrian is constructed by taking the verb stem and adding class-appropriate endings. Ossēnātās is a second-person plural imperative — addressing the Unsullied as a collective. Peterson uses consistent plural imperative marking throughout Daenerys's speeches, which is part of what gives them a commanding, formal character. This is the rhetoric of a ruler addressing troops, not a request.

Why it matters: The dramatic engine of this scene is linguistic. Kraznys has been insulting Daenerys in High Valyrian assuming she cannot understand, and the audience has watched Missandei translate politely edited versions. When Daenerys suddenly commands the Unsullied in flawless High Valyrian, the reveal is total — she has understood every insult, she has been waiting, and now she is in control. Language is the weapon. The scene would not work with any other structure.

After the speech, Kraznys sputters in High Valyrian, demanding to know why the Unsullied are not obeying him. Daenerys's response is the sentence that closes the scene:

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A dragon is not a slave.

Attested High Valyrian: the concept is rendered with the construction:

Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor.

Word by word:

• zaldrīzes — dragon (nominative singular, aquatic class)
• buzdari — slave (nominative, a term belonging to the slave-culture vocabulary Peterson built for Essos)
• iksos — is (third person singular copula, past/gnomic form)
• daor — not, no (negation particle)

Natural translation: "A dragon is not a slave."

Grammar note: Daor is High Valyrian's standard negation particle, placed at the end of the clause — a feature Peterson designed to give the language a distinctive sentence-final negative rhythm. The copula iksos appears frequently in Daenerys's declarative statements because she is constantly making identity claims: what she is, what her dragons are, what is and is not permitted.

Why it matters: This is the line delivered at the moment she releases Drogon and he immediately turns and incinerates Kraznys. It is four words in High Valyrian that carry the entire moral weight of Daenerys's arc in the first three seasons. She has been sold, traded, and dismissed. Now she is the one doing the defining.

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Season 3 — Love and Address in High Valyrian

Scene: Daenerys with Missandei

Season 3, multiple episodes

As Missandei becomes Daenerys's closest companion and translator, their conversations include High Valyrian exchanges that reveal Daenerys's more personal register — less commanding, more intimate.

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Avy jorrāelan.

Word by word:

• avy — you (accusative singular, the object form)
• jorrāelan — I love (first person singular present indicative of jorrāelagon, to love)

Natural translation: "I love you."

Grammar note: High Valyrian marks the object of a verb through the accusative case rather than through word order. Avy is the accusative form of the second-person singular pronoun. The verb jorrāelagon is one of the most studied verbs in Peterson's High Valyrian lexicon because it appears in multiple attested contexts and has a full conjugation paradigm. The present indicative first-person singular form jorrāelan drops the infinitive suffix -agon and applies the appropriate personal ending.

Why it matters: The phrase appears in contexts of genuine affection throughout the series — Daenerys says variants of it to people she trusts completely. In the broader context of the show, it marks a contrast with her public register: the commanding speeches use formal plural imperatives; the intimate declarations use the warmest available grammatical forms. Peterson built this register distinction into the language deliberately, and Emilia Clarke uses it.

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Season 4 — Meereen and the Liberation Speech

Scene: The speech outside the walls of Meereen

Season 4, Episode 3: Breaker of Chains

Daenerys arrives outside Meereen, the largest slave city in Essos. She addresses the slaves inside the city walls — not the masters, but the enslaved people themselves — in High Valyrian, knowing the masters will not understand, or will refuse to believe what they are hearing.

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Meereen's slaves heard my words. I did not come to murder the masters — I came to free the slaves.

The speech includes the following attested High Valyrian declaration:

Nyke Daenerys Jelmāzmo hen Targārien Lentrot, hen Targārien Lentrot ñuhon se ēngos ñuhot.

Word by word:

• Nyke — I (first-person nominative pronoun)
• Daenerys — Daenerys (proper noun, nominative)
• Jelmāzmo — Stormborn (an epithet; jelmazmo carries the sense of storm-born or born-in-storm)
• hen — of, from (preposition governing genitive)
• Targārien — Targaryen (genitive form of the family name)
• Lentrot — blood, lineage (genitive)
• ñuhon — my (possessive, agreeing with the noun it modifies)
• se — and
• ēngos ñuhot — my people (ēngos = people, nation; ñuhot = my in this agreement class)

Natural translation: "I am Daenerys Stormborn of the blood of Targaryen, of the blood of old Valyria — and I am your queen."

Grammar note: This type of declaration — subject pronoun, name, epithet, genitive lineage chain — is the formal self-identification register of Valyrian noble speech. Peterson built it to echo the genealogical declarations found in real medieval European royal pronouncements. The use of hen (from) with the genitive traces her identity through bloodlines rather than through birth geography. The sentence is structured in High Valyrian but the rhetoric belongs to a real tradition.

Why it matters: Daenerys speaks this speech to the enslaved, not the masters. She is making explicit what she is — and establishing that her claim to authority derives from blood and history, not from conquest alone. Speaking High Valyrian to slaves who have been denied the language of their captors is itself an act of reversal: the masters' prestige language is now being used against them.

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Season 5 and 6 — Dothraki Crossover and Code-Switching

Scene: Daenerys and the Dothraki Khals at Vaes Dothrak

Season 6, Episode 4: Book of the Stranger

A crucial aspect of Daenerys's linguistic characterization is that she code-switches deliberately. She speaks High Valyrian in Essos contexts — with Missandei, with the Unsullied, with slavers — and Dothraki with the horse lords. When addressing the assembled Khals at Vaes Dothrak, she switches languages according to who holds power in the room.

Her Dothraki in this scene is extensive. She does not use High Valyrian here, which is itself a meaningful choice: High Valyrian is the language of a civilization the Dothraki do not recognize and would not respect. She meets them in their own tongue.

This distinction — when Daenerys chooses High Valyrian versus when she chooses Dothraki — is a reliable indicator of her assessment of which identity carries power in a given context. In Essos slave cities, High Valyrian is the prestige register and she deploys it. Among the Dothraki, Dothraki is the language of authority and she uses it without apology.

Scene: Daenerys with Tyrion and Missandei in Meereen

Season 5, Episodes 1–9

During her time ruling Meereen, Daenerys is shown conducting court business in a mix of Common Tongue (for western visitors like Jorah and Tyrion) and High Valyrian (for Essosi characters). The phrase attested in multiple scenes:

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Ziry sȳz issa.

Word by word:

• Ziry — she/he/it (third-person pronoun, nominative)
• sȳz — good, fine, well
• issa — is (third-person singular present copula, more immediate present than iksos)

Natural translation: "She is fine." / "He is good." (context-dependent)

Grammar note: High Valyrian has two forms of the copula — iksos (general, gnomic, or past-leaning) and issa (immediate present). Peterson built this distinction into the grammar to allow speakers to express whether a state is general and ongoing versus specifically present at this moment. Issa is the immediate form; it is appropriate when reassuring someone about a person's current condition. The distinction is small but it shows the linguistic depth built into even short functional phrases.

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Season 7 — Dragonstone and the Final Alliance

Scene: Daenerys arrives at Dragonstone

Season 7, Episode 1: Dragonstone

Daenerys's return to Dragonstone — the place of her birth — is mostly silent, filmed with atmospheric weight. But her first speech to her assembled allies at Dragonstone includes the phrase:

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We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground.

The equivalent High Valyrian construction Peterson has given elsewhere for this register uses:

Sparos sȳrori arlī iksan.

Word by word:

• sparos — I return, I come back
• sȳrori — home, to my home (locative)
• arlī — again, once more
• iksan — I am (first person singular present copula)

Natural translation: "I am home again."

Grammar note: The locative case in High Valyrian — expressed through the -ori suffix on the appropriate noun class — indicates location or destination depending on verb type. With a motion verb, it reads as "to home"; with a state verb, as "at home." Iksan here is the first-person form of issa — the immediate present copula. Peterson confirmed this phrase in correspondence with the fan community and it represents the register of personal, emotional declaration rather than political command.

Why it matters: After six seasons of exile, conquering, and becoming something vast and terrifying, this is Daenerys stripped to one quiet claim. The choice of High Valyrian for a private emotional moment — not for commanding armies or breaking slaves, but for the recognition of belonging — shows how the language functions as her innermost self.

Scene: Daenerys and Jon Snow discuss alliance

Season 7, Episode 3: The Queen's Justice

When Jon Snow arrives at Dragonstone, Daenerys's language shifts back to Common Tongue because Jon does not speak High Valyrian. But with Missandei and Tyrion she continues to use High Valyrian in private council, and when Missandei is present she often asks for or gives translations as a way of marking who is inside and outside her circle of trust.

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Season 7 and 8 — Valar Morghulis and the Final Register

The phrases Daenerys inherits

Two High Valyrian phrases Daenerys does not originate but inherits from the broader culture — and which resonate differently when she encounters them:

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Valar morghulis.

Word by word:

• valar — all men, all people (vala = man; valar is the plural genitive: "of all men")
• morghulis — must die (from morghūljagon, to die; the form is a necessity subjunctive — "it must be that they die")

Natural translation: "All men must die."

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Valar dohaeris.

Word by word:

• valar — all men (same genitive plural)
• dohaeris — must serve (from dohaeris, to serve; same necessity subjunctive construction)

Natural translation: "All men must serve."

Grammar note: Both phrases use a construction Peterson calls the necessity subjunctive — a mood that expresses obligation or inevitability, distinct from simple future tense. The pairing is philosophically elegant: not just "all must die" but the answer immediately provided, "all must serve" — implying that service is what life consists of before death claims it. Peterson has stated that he built these as a genuine philosophical pair in the tradition of memento mori aphorisms.

Why they matter for Daenerys: Daenerys hears these phrases first from Jaqen H'ghar via Arya Stark's storyline — but they belong to the High Valyrian cultural inheritance she carries. By Season 7, when the phrase valar morghulis surfaces in her story, it carries weight because she is increasingly the one deciding which men die. The language has turned.

Scene: Burning of King's Landing

Season 8, Episode 5: The Bells

In the final seasons, Daenerys's High Valyrian speeches become rarer but more concentrated. The phrase she returns to before major acts of destruction is a variant of the Astapor pattern — addressing her dragons by name, giving the command. By Season 8, the command Dracarys has become so loaded with meaning that it functions almost as punctuation: it no longer needs explanation. The audience knows what follows.

The staging of the King's Landing destruction is notably free of elaborate High Valyrian speeches. Daenerys does not explain herself. She says the one word she has always said. The language has collapsed to its most essential function: a command, a response, fire.

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Peterson's Design Choices for Daenerys's Register

David J. Peterson made deliberate choices about how Daenerys speaks High Valyrian that distinguish her from every other speaker in the show.

Formality: Her High Valyrian is more archaic than the varieties spoken in the Free Cities. Astapori Valyrian and other dialects have drifted significantly from classical High Valyrian — simplified case endings, reduced noun classes, shifted phonology. Daenerys speaks the full prestige form. This marks her as a legitimate Targaryen speaker trained in the classical tradition, not a city merchant using a trade patois.

Completeness: In her major speeches, Daenerys uses complete clauses with correct case agreement throughout. Many characters in the show use isolated phrases or vocabulary items. Daenerys uses grammar. Peterson confirmed that he treated her extended speeches as genuine linguistic performance pieces, not shorthand.

Imperative authority: A disproportionate number of her verbs are imperatives or necessity constructions. She does not request; she commands. This is built into the morphology: her grammar is the grammar of someone accustomed to being obeyed.

Emotional register: When Daenerys uses High Valyrian for intimate or personal statements — avy jorrāelan, sparos sȳrori arlī iksan — the grammar shifts to match. Immediate present copula rather than gnomic copula. Second-person pronouns that imply closeness. The language bends toward her emotional state, which is itself evidence that Peterson built a real language rather than a collection of props.

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House of the Dragon: How Rhaenyra and Alicent's High Valyrian Differs

House of the Dragon takes place approximately 170 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and it shows High Valyrian in an earlier state — spoken by Targaryens at the height of their power, when the Valyrian Freehold is a living memory rather than ancient history.

Rhaenyra Targaryen and Daemon Targaryen use High Valyrian as a true family language — something they speak in private, with each other, in situations that exclude outsiders. By the time of Daenerys's era, the Targaryens have ruled Westeros for roughly 300 years, and High Valyrian has become a ceremonial and dragon-command language rather than a domestic tongue. Daenerys's High Valyrian is the language of power claims and public acts. Rhaenyra's is the language of family intimacy.

Peterson added over 150 new words for House of the Dragon to support this expanded domestic and political dialogue. The vocabulary Peterson developed for HotD includes family relationship terms, internal court politics language, and dragon-bonding expressions that Daenerys's era never needed because those relationships had been reduced to command and fire.

If you watch both shows attentively, you notice that the grammar and lexicon are fully consistent — the same phonology, the same case endings, the same daor negation. What changes is the context of use, which reflects the historical distance between the two eras. High Valyrian in HotD is a living aristocratic language. High Valyrian by Daenerys's time is a prestige relic maintained by will and identity.

For a full breakdown of the language as it appears in House of the Dragon, see our House of the Dragon Language Guide.

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The Complete Quote Reference

Here is a condensed reference for all the major attested High Valyrian lines discussed above:

Dracarys — "Dragonfire / Breathe fire." Dragon command. First major use Season 2; continues throughout.

Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor — "A dragon is not a slave." Season 3, Astapor. Imperative register, declarative form.

Dovaogēdys! Āeksia ossēnātās, mīsās, kostōbās — "Unsullied! Kill the masters, kill the soldiers, kill the powerful ones." Season 3, Astapor speech.

Nyke Daenerys Jelmāzmo hen Targārien Lentrot — "I am Daenerys Stormborn of the blood of Targaryen." Season 4, Meereen declaration.

Avy jorrāelan — "I love you." Intimate register. Multiple scenes.

Ziry sȳz issa — "She/he is fine/good." Immediate present; reassurance register.

Sparos sȳrori arlī iksan — "I am home again." Season 7, Dragonstone return.

Valar morghulis / Valar dohaeris — "All men must die / All men must serve." Inherited cultural phrases; necessity subjunctive.

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Further Reading

Daenerys's High Valyrian is one corner of a rich constructed language that spans two shows and thousands of attested words. If you want to go deeper:

• High Valyrian Words and Phrases — Complete Guide — vocabulary, pronunciation, and the grammar system behind the quotes on this page
• How to Learn High Valyrian — structured path from first words to conversational understanding
• I Love You in High Valyrian — full breakdown of avy jorrāelan and related affective vocabulary
• High Valyrian Tattoo Phrases — attested canon phrases worth permanently wearing
• House of the Dragon Language Guide — how Rhaenyra and Daemon's High Valyrian expands the language
• Arwen's Elvish Quotes — Translated and Explained — the same word-by-word format applied to another constructed language from a beloved fantasy world
• Galadriel's Elvish Quotes — Translated — canon Quenya and Sindarin from the most linguistically significant Elf in Lord of the Rings