Aegon V

Greetings fellow acolytes. Welcome to another episode of The Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. If you’re new to this podcast, welcome! I hope you enjoy this journey of all things Westeros. And in this episode, I’ll be talking about Aegon V.

Before I start the discussion, I have a couple of things to announce! First I see that there’s now 2 instead of just 1 response to my Targaryen kings poll! Currently there are 2 votes for Jaehaerys I as the best Targaryen king. There’s an interesting different vote for worst Targaryen king. There’s a vote for other and this listener wrote in Viserys I. They said, “He paved the way for the dance, and paved the way for the awful kings following him. He didn't set up anything for reigns to come, he only cared to be liked.” I can’t say I disagree with this comment. As an individual, Viserys I was a nice guy and you’d be more than happy to hang out with him. He’s probably that guy you know that has the best parties. He’s just not the guy you want running your country.

I’ll be honest with you listeners I can’t personally pick a king I think is the worst. They’re all pretty terrible in different ways. It’s really like a race to the bottom, so I’m not trying to cop out. It’s just hard to pick who did the most damage to Westeros.

Second announcement is that I continue to get a lot of new listeners, particularly from Player.fm along with a few other listening platforms. As always I’m happy that you decided to spend your time listening to this podcast. I hope that you check out the older episodes because they include a lot of content that will hopefully be interesting to you. This episode is part of Season 2 of the podcast.

Season 1 I did some overview explanations of the different places and noble houses in Westeros. Think of it as Westeros 101. Also I did some post-episode discussions of House of the Dragon Season 2. I’m not just recommending those episodes to you listeners because I want more downloads in my analytics. I genuinely think you guys would get a lot out of listening to them because you do get explanations of lore that don’t get included in Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon.

As an example, I explained how Ser Jorah Mormont was at one point Margaery and Loras Tyrell’s uncle. I also explained how Samwell Tarly and Shireen Baratheon were second cousins. The House of the Dragon commentary also included me pointing out details in the episodes you might have missed because there’s references to lore not explained in the show. If you continue listening to future seasons of this podcast, I’ll continue making references to these earlier episodes just so you know. With that said, here’s the usual disclaimer.

There will be some potential spoilers for people who have not read any of the books connected to A Song of Ice and Fire. There may also be potential spoilers for House of the Dragon and other future shows adapted by Max. So if you’re okay with this, then please continue listening.

Second, the information in this episode comes from the written works of George R. R. Martin and the contributors of A Wiki of Ice and Fire on Westeros.org. Check out the full show notes and other links located on this show’s website: thewesterosiprimer.com With that said, let’s begin!

In many respects this is both a preview of the upcoming series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and next season of this podcast. That’s because many of the events I’ll covering next season and in the Max show are about the early years of Aegon V as I’ll explain in a bit. I’ll cover some of the events in this episode. However I won’t be as in-depth because I would like to leave you guys some meaningful content next season instead of just repeating everything. I did this in the Daeron II episode with the Tourney at Ashford Meadow. A lot of things happened at that tourney that impacted future events.

Also Aegon V was born when his grandfather Daeron II was king. So there will be a little bit of repeating of info from that episode and the previous episode, but it makes sense. I mentioned, but didn’t discuss Aegon too much in those episodes. I’ll be revisiting those events from Aegon’s perspective if you will.

Aegon V was born in AC 200 as the youngest son and the fifth of six children to King Maekar Targaryen and his wife, Dyanna Dayne. One interesting fact that I didn’t mention before is that Dyanna Dayne is obviously from House Dayne, which is in Dorne. The interesting part is that House Dayne has another famous member, Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard. We actually saw Arthur Dayne in Game of Thrones.

When Bran Stark sees his father going to the Tower of Joy, Ned and his companions fight with three Kingsguard. The knight that was wielding two swords is Arthur Dayne. On a side note, I personally think it’s weird he’s portrayed that way in the TV show because he only had one sword named Dawn. But I’ll talk about this in another episode.

What was Aegon like as a child? He was generally described as being kind to people and loved animals. As you’d expect from a kid, he was also mischievous at times, but pretty clever. He was pretty quick with comebacks. He was very close to his older brother Aemon, which I discussed in the previous episode. Aemon was the one who gave him the nickname Egg. Aegon enjoyed playing games with Aemon where they re-enact historical battles and they’d both dream that they would hatch dragons like their ancestors did.

If Aegon loved hanging out with his brother Aemon, the brother he liked the least was Aerion. If you listened to the previous 2 episodes, you shouldn’t be too surprised about this. I explained Aerion wasn’t that great of a person and was possibly mentally ill. In case you needed more reasons why Aegon doesn’t like Aerion, here’s a couple. Aerion threw Aegon’s pet cat down a well. Aerion also snuck into Aegon’s room late at night with a knife. He basically threatened to castrate his brother and then claimed he was only joking. I think Westeros should be grateful he drank wildfire later.

One interesting thing that happened was apparently his sister Rhae gave a love potion to Aegon so he would marry her instead of Daella. It’s really not all that clear if that meant Aegon was originally betrothed to his sister Daella or if it was just something being considered. Aegon didn’t want to marry and actually expressed an interest in being a member of the kingsguard like Aemon the Dragonknight. Of course in hindsight, this would have been a huge problem if he had joined.

Aegon spent a couple of years as a page in the Red Keep and he was apparently a cupbearer in the Small Council chambers just like his ancestor Rhaenyra was. It seems to me that more members of the royal family should have spent time acting as pages and cupbearers. I think it would have been meaningful experience allowing them to learn something about how government worked. It would have helped some of these rulers do a better job.

But of course let’s get to some more action that happened with Aegon. I had briefly talked about the Tourney at Ashford Meadow in the Daeron II episode. This was a pretty significant event. Not just for house Targaryen, but also the future of Westeros. Just to give more context to what happened, I’m going to discuss this tourney again with more detail.

The Tourney of Ashford Meadow was a tourney that Lord Ashford held in honor of his daughter’s thirteenth birthday. Since the tourney was for his daughter, naturally she would be crowned the Queen of Love and Beauty. The tourney had 5 final champions competing in her honor: Ser Tybolt Lannister, Ser Lyonel Baratheon, Lord Leo Tyrell, Ser Humphrey Hardyng, and Prince Valarr Targaryen. On a side note, these five champions created an interesting fan theory related to Sansa Stark. I will have to save this for a future episode of the podcast to expand on this.

Many members of House Targaryen were at this tourney including Maekar and his sons. At this point, Aegon was supposed be a squire for his oldest brother, Daeron. However as I mentioned last episode, Daeron had very little interest in being a knight even though he was one. In fact Daeron opted to go to a tavern and drink instead of compete. He also dragged Aegon along with him.

Daeron actually didn’t look much like a Targaryen in that he lacked the famous silver, blond hair Targaryens typically have. He likely inherited his hair color from his mother. In contrast, Aegon did have the typical Targaryen hair color. This is why Daeron had his brother shave his head so no one would realize who either of them really are. In particular Daeron didn’t want men working for their father to recognize Aegon and therefore realize they ran away from the tourney.

While they were at the tavern they ran into Dunk. Daeron apparently had dragon dreams and claimed he saw Dunk in a dream and wanted to run away from him. Aegon was annoyed about not being able to go to the tourney since he really wants to be a knight. Aegon decided to claim his name is Egg and spoke to Dunk about being his squire during the tourney since he didn’t have one. Dunk wasn’t interested, but eventually agreed and they headed off to the tourney.

Eventually Daeron was found. To explain where his brother was, he made up a ridiculous story about how his brother was kidnapped by some huge robber knight. Honestly this was Daeron trying to come up with some excuse so he wouldn’t be blamed for losing his little brother. There is a consequence coming up because of this story.

As I mentioned in the Daeron II episode, Dunk would later get into an altercation with Aerion leading to the Trial by seven. What I didn’t mention was that a big reason why Maekar chose to side with Aerion was not only because Aerion was his son. It was also because Dunk fit the rough description Daeron said was the man who kidnapped Aegon. This made Maekar more convinced that Aerion was telling the truth. While Daeron would later apologize to Dunk, this would lead to his uncle Baelor dying.

If I’m being honest with you listeners, it was crazy that all of this even happened. In the grand scheme of things, we know it wouldn’t have mattered that Baelor died. Assuming Baelor didn’t die during the Great Spring Sickness, Maekar or one of his sons would have wound up being king anyway. Baelor only had two sons and it’s not clear if Baelor and his wife would have been able to have any other children. And as I discussed last episode, Aerys had no children and Rhaegel and Aelor would die early.

After the mess that was the Trial by Seven, Dunk was now a freed man. Maekar wanted Aegon to be trained as a knight. However Aegon’s short time with Dunk made him state he would rather train as a knight with Dunk than anyone else. I’ll explore more about this in Season 3 of the podcast when I explore the novellas and then react to the tv series.

Maekar offered to make Dunk a knight at Summerhall under him. Dunk agreed to take Aegon on as a squire. However Dunk argued that it would be better if Dunk continued as a wandering hedge knight while mentoring Aegon. He believed the experience of wandering Westeros and meeting all sorts of people would be a better teaching opportunity for the young prince. It would surprise many of you listeners that Maekar actually agreed to this. And you may wonder why?

Simply put think about what kind of men Aerion and Daeron turned out to be? By this point Aemon was already at the Citadel. Anyone who knows Aemon would probably think Maekar lucked out with that son. Maekar likely realized Dunk made a sound argument. Perhaps Aegon would learn a lot about being a better man by following this humble, down-to-earth knight. So Aegon would spend the next few years wandering with Dunk. That’s what George wrote about in the Tales of Dunk and Egg. That’s also the basis for the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms tv series. I won’t discuss too much detail about these adventures in this episode because that’s what I’m talking about next season of this podcast.

The only tale I’ll mention is in AC 212 when Aegon and Dunk attend another tourney. That’s when they stumble into what would become known as the Second Blackfyre Rebellion. The squire and knight really wander all over Westeros in their adventures. The novellas so far talk about them in the Reach, Riverlands and Dorne. Another novella George planned to write about would be them in Winterfell during the inheritance dispute with the “She Wolves” of Winterfell like I discussed last episode.

In AC 220, Aegon marries Betha Blackwood. Like I mentioned last time, there was little objection to this marriage because Aegon was so unlikely to inherit the throne. Now this isn’t to say that the Blackwoods are a poor choice of family to marry into. However Aegon apparently loved her so this is a rare occasion a Targaryen married someone for love. I imagine Maekar was fine with it since Aegon turned out to be a capable knight and a much better person than his brothers. Also there was still a chance of his brothers having sons and heirs in line for succession. But we all know what happened if you listened last episode.

In AC 221, Aegon’s first child was born. It was a boy who would be named Duncan after Dunk. Also that same year, Maekar would become king when Aerys dies. Just like his father and grandfather, Aegon had a number of children with his wife. Aegon would have three sons and two daughters. After Duncan, there was Jaehaerys born in AC 225, Shaera born in AC 226, Daeron born in 228, and Rhaelle. It’s not clear exactly when Rhaelle was born. Of course the earliest she could have been born was AC 229 since she’s definitely after Daeron.

Then in AC 233, we have the Peake Uprising where Maekar would die and a Great Council was called. While it seemed obvious Aegon would be king, not all of the nobles liked this idea. They felt Aegon expressed too much reformist ideas and sympathies for the smallfolk over nobles’ interest. Which is pretty typical thinking for nobles to have. But as I discussed last episode, Aegon was king. And that’s what I’ll talk about next.

[Mid-roll space] – 16:38

Now here’s where I basically left off with the last episode and that is Aegon finally becoming king. One of Aegon’s first acts as king happened pretty quickly after the Council. He would order the punishment of Brynden Rivers. Brynden Rivers had promised safety to Aenys Blackfyre, but turned around and had the man killed. While most would agree it was good that this prevented a potential Blackfyre from taking the throne, the way Rivers went about doing things was pretty unsavory.

As Hand, Brynden Rivers used the power of the Crown to deceive someone like this. Aegon felt that it was important for him to punish his uncle for his actions. If he didn’t, no one would take him seriously as a king. He’d look like he was soft on people who broke peace and other possibly problematic behavior.

Of course Brynden was supposed to be executed for his actions. However he was allowed to go to the Wall instead. After this was when Aemon made the decision to also join the Watch. Dunk and several knights got the task of escorting Brynden Rivers, Maester Aemon, and other prisoners in the Red Keep to the Wall. Also joining them were members of the Raven’s Teeth. They were going to also join the Watch out of loyalty to their leader Brynden Rivers. In case you’re confused with who they are, I briefly explained who they are in episode 2.15 about Daeron II.

We more or less know what happens with Aemon after this. Aemon would spend many decades at the Wall serving as the maester at Castle Black. Audiences actually get introduced to Aemon in the first novel A Game of Thrones when Jon Snow arrives at the Wall about 65 years after he arrived at the Wall. And of course if you read the novels or watched Game of Thrones we know what he did during those final years of his life. Aemon actually traded letters with Rhaegar Targaryen where they had pleasant academic discussions. They also talked about the history of their house and even topics like prophecy, which was a topic Rhaegar was interested in.

As for Brynden Rivers, he may have taken Dark Sister with him as he is the last known person to have used and owned the sword. George hasn’t really explained what happened with that sword. It would have been pretty cool if Jon Snow had gotten his hands on it while he was at the Wall. Like if the sword was left with Aemon or something. Probably because of his experience as a field commander and Hand of the King, Brynden was eventually elected as Lord Commander of the Watch in AC 239.

Later in AC 252, Brynden would go on a ranging beyond the Wall and disappeared afterwards. Understandably, everyone assumes he died while out there. And then in AC 300, Bran Stark would make his journey following visions that lead him to a cave. And in the cave there’s a corpse like man with one eye promising to teach him how to use his growing powers. But of course this is a discussion for a future season of this podcast. At least if enough of you are interested in hearing about it.

Back to Aegon’s reign, let’s just go over some of the notable things that happened. Dunk was added to the kingsguard and would eventually become the Lord Commander for his former squire. Aegon became king right in the middle of a Winter that started in AC 230 and lasted until AC 236. Aegon arranged for extra supplies to be sent to the North. He was criticized by many for sending too much help. My opinion is that people in the Southern kingdoms really shouldn’t be so surprised that Northmen think they’re soft, pompous fools that wouldn’t know real hardship if it smacked them in the face.

And then right after Winter ends, the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion happens because of course it does. The Blackfyre at the head of this rebellion is Daemon Blackfyre III, who is the son of Haegon Blackfyre. If you listeners recall from the last episode, Haegon Blackfyre was the pretender who started the Third Rebellion. Aegor Rivers and the Golden Company backed this attempt and they landed in Massey’s Hook in the Crownlands. They hoped that if they won a few battles, they could rally local support in Westeros. However this utterly failed.

By this point it’s been a literal 40 years since Daemon’s namesake grandfather’s original rebellion. Any support the Blackfyres originally had more or less died out by this point. The failure of the Third Rebellion and then the Peake Uprising made it clear Blackfyres will never sit on the throne. All of these attempts to put a Blackfyre on the Iron Throne is pretty comical at this point.

Aegon and his three sons rally troops to fight off this new invasion. Dunk would actually kill Daemon while the army defeated the Blackfyre forces. Once again Aegor Rivers manages to escape back to Essos like he’s a member of Team Rocket or something. Aegor Rivers would actually die in AC 241 in the Disputed Lands of Essos. He and the Golden Company were working during a conflict between Tyrosh and Myr. By that point, Aegor is 69 years old, which is pretty reasonably old for a man who regularly fights battles.

Another consequence of the Fourth Blackfyre rebellion is we get another death I need to talk about. As I mentioned last episode, there was a Tywald Lannister acting as a squire during the Peake Uprising. He was the heir to Casterly Rock and died. As a consequence his twin brother Tion became the heir and also wound up with Tywald’s betrothed, Ellyn Reyne. By this point Tion and Ellyn were married and then Tion dies during the Rebellion. The next in line to inherit the Rock is Tytos Lannister, who was married to Jeyne Marbrand. In fact both brothers shared a wedding ceremony.

There were a lot of conflicts that happened as a result. Ellyn unfortunately didn’t have children and she wasn’t pregnant, which meant that Tytos’s branch of the family would inherit the Rock. Ellyn had ambitions to be the Lady of the Rock, but she lost out. She had to return to her family and wound up marrying Lord Walderan Tarbeck. She would spend the next few years in a social rivalry with her former sister-in-law. She was undoubtedly laughing years later when Tytos became Lord Lannister because he was foolish and weak. This was something that would really bother the heck out of Tytos’s oldest child Tywin in the future. So yes listeners, I will be revisiting this family in the next episode. So stay tuned.

I have to say Aegon really had to deal with a lot of conflicts. Not everyone agreed with his reformist ideas that would help the smallfolk while weakening the power of the lords. Aegon was forced to make concessions to get at least some aspects of his ideas done rather than nothing at all. Adding to his difficulties were his own children.

It occurred to Aegon that Targaryen incest was highly problematic. It was pretty creepy to most people, but also his family no longer had dragons. There was no real justification to marry siblings to each other since you can’t argue that you want to limit access to dragons. This is why Aegon and his wife negotiated betrothals for all of their children. He hoped these marriage alliances would help him gain more support for future policy proposals. However just like him, some of his children had ideas of who they want to marry instead of what he wanted.

Duncan was supposed to marry the daughter of Lord Lyonel Baratheon. Unfortunately Duncan fell in love with a commoner named Jenny of Oldstones. In AC 239, he would marry Jenny without permission. Duncan was given the choice of giving up his wife or giving up his right to the throne. Duncan chose his wife and his brother Jaehaerys would become Prince of Dragonstone. In fact a song would be written later named after Jenny of Oldstones and we got listen to Podrick Payne singing it in Episode 8.02 of Game of Thrones.

Like a typical proud Stormlander, Lord Lyonel was angry about this and actually declared himself the Storm king and rebelled against the Iron Throne. This rebellion didn’t last long since Dunk defeated Lyonel in a one-on-one duel. Aegon negotiated again with Lord Baratheon. To make up for Duncan’s choice, Aegon agree to betroth Rhaelle to Lord Lyonel’s heir Ormund. Rhaelle was promptly sent to Storm’s End to be cupbearer and companion to Lord Lyonel’s wife. Ormund and Rhaelle got married in AC 245. They would have at least one child, a son named Steffon who I’ll talk about in the next episode.

Now remember when I said earlier about how Aegon didn’t like the idea of continuing Targaryen incest? Well apparently Jaehaerys was named appropriately because like his namesake ancestor he loved his sister Shaera. And apparently Shaera felt the same way. Brother and sister eloped and Aegon had to deal with Houses Tyrell and Tully for the broken engagements.

Daeron was actually betrothed to a young Olenna Redwyne. When he was 18 he followed his siblings’ lead and broke the engagement on account of the fact he was more interested in Ser Jeremy Norridge than Olenna. Olenna would claim to her granddaughter Margaery Tyrell and Sansa Stark that she didn’t want to marry a Targaryen prince anyway. She thought Targaryens were rather strange.

If you listeners recall from last episode, I mentioned that Princess Aelora Targaryen had been attacked by mysterious men only referred to as Pig, Rat, and Hawk. Well allegedly these men (or possibly men using similar aliases) would start a rebellion in AC 251. Prince Daeron was among those who were sent to deal with it. Eventually the rebellion was crushed, but Daeron would be amongst the fallen along with his friend/lover Ser Jeremy.

In AC 258 there would be some suspicious activity happening in Essos. Out in the Disputed lands, there were nine people who wound up forming a loose alliance in order to take over the territory and form kingdoms of their own. This alliance consolidated forces and resources so that they can help each other with conquests. One of the nine was Meleys Blackfyre who was the last male descendent of Daemon I Blackfyre. It’s not clear how exactly he fits in the Blackfyre family tree. Considering Meleys and other members were still in Essos, Aegon decided to just keep an eye on them. After all it’s not like he could send Westerosi knights to Essos to fight them. Also he had other concerns closer to home.

For years now Aegon was frustrated that he wasn’t able to achieve as much as he wanted. He was constantly forced to cut back just so he didn’t anger the nobles of Westeros. After years of this constant back and forth, he came to a conclusion as to how to address this. His conclusion was that House Targaryen lost their power when the dragons died. Therefore the solution to his problem was bring back the dragons. Many advisors argued against this belief, but Aegon was wholly convinced this was the only way.

In AC 159, the many members of the royal family would head to Summerhall ostensibly for the upcoming birth of his great-grandchild. It’s not clear exactly how it happened, but a terrible fire broke out that burned down the castle originally built by Daeron II. It’s suspected it was connected to Aegon’s attempts to hatch dragon eggs. Many people died during the fire including Aegon V. This would result in Jaehaerys being crowned as King Jaehaerys II.

And that just about covers the life of Aegon V. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself, feel free to go to the full show notes where I will have links. Though be aware if you do any of this research there will be spoilers to the novels, House of the Dragon, and Max’s future adaptations.

Thank you for listening and tune in to the next episode where I’ll do the final two monarch of House Targaryen. It won’t be the final episode of the season though. I will do an additional episode with some final thoughts about house Targaryen and share some additional stuff about the future of the podcast.