Rakharo
A young Dothraki warrior of Drogo's khas, loyal to Daenerys, who stays at her side when greater men abandon her.
A soul born at The Dothraki Sea, sworn to The Dothraki.
The fuller tale
How it ends for them
On the screen. His head returned in a saddlebag (alive in the books) (S2┬ÀE2)
Sent to scout the red waste for the starving khalasar, he met a rival khal's riders. His horse came back with his head in a saddlebag and his braid cut ÔÇö a Dothraki's deepest shame.
The showÔÇÖs Rakharo dies off-screen in the red waste, and the death is delivered as pure Dothraki horror: sent out to scout the empty country for the starving remnant of the khalasar, he does not come back ÔÇö his horse does, with his severed head in a saddlebag and his braid cut off, the mutilation that shames a rider in death. The kill is credited to a rival khalasar, one of the hordes of the old order announcing what it does to those who follow a woman; IrriÔÇÖs grief over the braid ÔÇö he cannot enter the night lands whole ÔÇö is the sceneÔÇÖs true point, a cultureÔÇÖs whole theology of death compressed into a saddlebag. In the published books Rakharo is alive and riding at his queenÔÇÖs side in Meereen; the head, the braid and the saddlebag belong to the show alone.
Their chapters, book by book
Where the page and the screen part
Book Rakharo is alive throughout the published novels: he survives the red waste (it is he who scouts the way to Qarth), crosses to SlaverÔÇÖs Bay, and stands among the queenÔÇÖs kos in Meereen ÔÇö one of the three young riders, with Aggo and Jhogo, whom Daenerys names as good as bloodriders despite customÔÇÖs objection to serving a woman. The show killed him in its second-season opener ÔÇö a choice reportedly tangled with recasting practicalities ÔÇö and gave his role in the later seasons to the invented rider Kovarro and, eventually, to the anonymous mass of the Dothraki. The booksÔÇÖ bloodrider triad, each carrying a piece of her khalasarÔÇÖs honor, has no real screen counterpart; RakharoÔÇÖs early death is where the show began flattening the Dothraki inner circle it never rebuilt.
Their journey
Where the two tellings send them to the same place the road runs whole; where they part, the screen keeps the left and the books the right.