Rhaenerys is the great granddaughter of the former King of Cephri, Agamemnon the Awful, who was disposed off. Rhae's grandparents fled to Eilleas following the rebellion but their family could never come back to Cephri, years went by and the Cephrians forgot about the Blackfyres. It was always the wish of her family to get back to Cephri and their throne, their 8 hundred year dynasty, but it never worked out. But this all changed when Rhaenerys comes around. Dragons. Rhaenerys and her two siblings have three dragons between themselves, with the ultimate killing weapon now one can dream big. Rhaenerys wants to get back the crown that is rightfully her family's, and with the dragons she now has a means to get it.
Rhae begins her campaign by looting her city of Neropos, and taking the gold from their vaults. She thinks to herself that the people of Neropos have been too content with living alongside dragons, so she loots the vaults as a show of strength and also a means to fund her journey to Cephri. She will need an army, and with the gold of Neropos she'll buy them. Rhae feels total dominance over Neropos with her dragon and she realises that dominance will have to be shown over everywhere she goes to get what she wants.
At Sifos, Rhae learns about the strength of the individual with Loraq and Morren. Loraq has total dominance over her husband, which Aeryxs remarks makes him like a pet to her. Through this Rhae understands that it isn't neccessary to sell herself to the highest bidder and find a marriage, Loraq has dominance over Morren in marriage and Rhae has dominance over the world with her dragons - so she doesn't have to play under the world's rule. When she meets Caravious D'jem and his Legionnaire army she is appalled by the conditions enforced on the Legionnaires, and quickly wants to resolve it. Rhae doesn't have to play by the rules so she tricks Caravious into selling her dragon, but proceeds to burn him and his entire facility. taking the Legionnaire army with her.
Rhae is completely unopposed right now, there are no hurdles in her journey and when she makes it to Oswen she comes in with total confidence - examining the area to see if there are any reasons she needs to dismantle the system is place. She's judge, jury and executioner. At Oswen her job is made easier by Fightback and they have heard of her exploits at Sifos. Rhae's building a reputation for herself and of course it'll pump up her ego - she feels invincible right now. I don't think Rhae sees herself like this but other people may look at her like a messiah, because she has dragons with her and she's doing good for the people by freeing the slaves. We mustn't forget that many believe her to be a real messiah known as Sheer Haert.
She feels her first obstacle at the walls of Aswen with the sellswords pitched outside waiting to fight her, if need. However Aswen is only a small hurdle as things go swimmingly, Ser Leonard beats Aswen's champion and T'wak Kaga kills the sellsword captains. Rhae has faced her first barrier but has broken past it with relative ease.
Now, things get harder when she is inside Aswen. Now she has to act as a political figure, and not as a commander as she has the past couple of months. She struggles to get things to get her way, when before she could easily break the rules by unleashing her dragon - if she breaks the rules in Aswen she knows she'll lose everything she built up. If she burns the terrorists she'll be seen as ruthless and Rhae would rather be seen kindly. She'd rather be known as a benevolent ruler and then perhaps a shrewd tactician on the field. But things don't go easy for her, their dragons cause trouble, the Cloaked Revolutionaries are out murdering people and polluting wells, her 'fling' with T'wak Kaga isn't going so well, citizens are coming to her with hard situations, Leonard and Daniel are telling her the opposite of her idea of Cephri.
This builds up to her first appearance at the Fighting Pits when she discovers that the combatants fight to the death and a slaves, two things that she thought was not going to happen. At the time, Rhaenerys has to suck it up in order not to break the rules, but she's furious at it. This all climaxes at the trial of N'kitah for murder. Rhae works within the rules now, she tries to appease everyone - the nobles and the common people, but it fails. When N'kitah is going to be executed Rhae tries to get the people to calm down and let N'kitah's legacy live on but she's drowned out. When N'kitah is executed she realises she's failed, the common people hiss at her and the nobility hug and applaud between themselves. At that moment The Cloaked Revolutionaires attack, killing people and Rhae realises that she cannot fight within the rules. She calls for her dragon and she rides atop it for the first time, killing her enemies and making people fall to their knees, she then sits at the top of her palace as a vigilantee of the city.